Wik-Off Redux
By 
As a newbie to the whole iPod/iPhone phenomenon (I now am the proud owner of an iPod Touch), I have become amazed at the plethora of applications available via the iTunes App Store that fundamentally do the same thing. For example, there are several applications available for the sole purpose of formatting Wikipedia to the iPod Touch rather than simply using Safari to navigate to Wikipedia.com. These applications tailor such searches for easier Wikipedia navigation on the iPod Touch screen in case you having the craving for research while travelling.
With that in mind, I took a fresh look at four of these Wikipedia applications, offer my thoughts on each and decide which I like best.
The only free offering of the four, offering some pretty standard innovations such as a list of the pages that match the letters you typed in the search box on top, ample screen space to see the requested page and automatic navigation to the main Wikipedia page if nothing is typed in the search box. Also offered are lists of related articles and shortcuts to each article section from a single tap near the bottom of the screen. The function of this app is fairly basic and only marginally more convenient than using Safari.
iWik’s home page is its own browser window with a search box, their logo and a featured Wikipedia article. The search field is the standard one but without the auto-completed suggestions of Wikipanion. I like that the user can adjust the font size because I sometimes have difficulty staring at the small screen. It also takes the liberty of initially only showing the main article of the selection with a “Show” button for each sub-section, to make scrolling to the bottom easier. iWik is no longer available but its successor, iPedia, is available for 99 cents.
Kiwi offers a cute graphic, the standard search box with individual word completion, a toolbar at the bottom of the screen where you can see which pages you recently viewed, your favorite pages, and a scrapbook of pages (which seems redundant to the favorites). My initial observation of this application is that the word completion for the search doesn’t allow you to tap the word to complete it. It is either only shown as a suggestion or is too small to tap. When you perform a search, the pages are shown as a list with the titles in bold and the initial paragraphs of the entries in regular gray text. The application gives you a single button to tap if you wish to e-mail a particular Wikipedia page to a friend. Another button launches Safari directly to the Wikipedia entry which you have selected. Annoyingly, the only way to apparently get back to Kiwi is via the main screen. This application is also 99 cents.
This is the $4.99 version of the free Wikipanion. Upon first glance, they look identical, offering similar search capabilities. However the Plus version offers several additional features including a bookmarks section in which you can add, edit or delete links to various pages and the “Queue mode” in which you can look at different articles sequentially.
Considering that each of the previous 99 cent applications offer their own variation on the bookmark functions, it doesn’t seem worth the investment.
Of the four, I actually like Wikipanion (the free version) best. While I use Wikipedia to research for my writing I rarely need to keep bookmarks or the ability to e-mail an article or put it in a queue. I also like the program’s ability to offer a list of possible entries based on the letters I typed in the search box. Finally, of all the options, it’s my favorite price.
You can get…
Wikipanion HERE
iWiki HERE
Kiwi HERE
Wikipanion Plus HERE
